False beliefs about couples

Have you ever heard phrases like « eve­ryone around me is divor­ced, I’ll pro­ba­bly end up the same way », or from a com­plexed for­mer tee­na­ger « I’ll never please anyone any­way » ?

We all have beliefs about love and rela­tion­ships : these are the fil­ters through which we view our love life.
They can be per­so­nal (as in the two examples above) or more gene­ral, such as « no man is loo­king for las­ting love today », or « if a couple quar­rels, it means they’re hea­ding for disaster !

So where do these beliefs come from, and how can we free our­selves from them if necessary ?

💡 Beco­ming aware of these beliefs is one of the first steps to enabling you to 
build a solid foun­da­tion for a suc­cess­ful mar­ried life.
. We’ll give you plen­ty more in our dedi­ca­ted article to put the odds in your favor.

couple qui prend un café en amoureux en terrasse

The origin of our beliefs about couples and love

Our beliefs have various sources : socie­ty, our fami­ly envi­ron­ment and our indi­vi­dual roman­tic history.

First of all, socie­ty : depen­ding on the coun­try, the era, the envi­ron­ment… where we were born, our per­cep­tion of love and mar­ried life varies greatly.
In our socie­ty, it is very stron­gly influen­ced by Walt Dis­ney and roman­tic come­dies, which have conveyed a cen­tral idea : one must put all one’s ener­gy into fin­ding the right per­son (myth : only one per­son on earth can suit us), then eve­ry­thing goes like clo­ck­work.they lived hap­pi­ly and had many chil­dren»(second myth : once you’ve found the right the right per­sonNo need to make the sligh­test effort, eve­ry­thing is super-smooth!)

But even within a given socie­ty, our per­cep­tions dif­fer accor­ding to our fami­ly his­to­ry : our vision of the couple depends very much on the models of couples we grew up with around us : fusio­nal or inde­pendent couples, « inde­pendent » couples or « inde­pendent » couples.uns­table » or, on the contra­ry, only life­long marriages…

Our per­so­nal roman­tic his­to­ry also stron­gly influences our vision of love : if, for example, our first love affair was mar­ked by vio­lence, we inte­grate the idea that love goes hand in hand with vio­lence into our future love life.

It’s also impor­tant to unders­tand the concept of congruence : the human brain is constant­ly see­king to confirm its beliefs. We will the­re­fore attract expe­riences that confirm our ini­tial vision of love.
For example, a woman whose mother has always told her that all men are unfai­th­ful and untrust­wor­thy is much more like­ly to attract this type of man into her life.

couple mixte de jeunes mariés

What are the most common beliefs about couples ? 

As we have just seen, there are as many beliefs as there are indi­vi­duals, depen­ding on their ori­gins, their expe­riences… Howe­ver, cer­tain beliefs are wide­ly held, so it’s worth ana­ly­zing them. We have selec­ted 4 of them.
  1. Mer­ger
    In movies, songs… hap­py couples are those who spend 100% of their time toge­ther. The expres­sion that sym­bo­lizes this per­fect­ly is « my other half ». Which impli­cit­ly means that without the other, I’m not whole and complete.
    At Unio, we advo­cate a dif­ferent vision : each mem­ber of a couple must culti­vate his or her indi­vi­dua­li­ty, and one of the great chal­lenges of a couple is to find the balance bet­ween time spent toge­ther and time spent apart.
    This is a sub­ject we invite you to explore fur­ther in ses­sion 7 of the Unio pre­ma­ri­tal coun­se­ling pro­gram (to find out more about the course, click here 👉 https://www.unio-preparation.com//en/premarital-counseling-course).
  2. Conflicts
    A wides­pread myth is that a hap­py couple is one that never argues, and agrees on everything. 
    • On the one hand, it’s per­fect­ly uto­pian : you’re both indi­vi­duals, and it’s per­fect­ly nor­mal to have disagreements.
    • On the other hand, we don’t think it’s a good idea to have no conflicts. We’ve all been in a rela­tion­ship where the­re’s never been any conflict, only to be stun­ned to learn over­night that the rela­tion­ship has bro­ken down. Arguing helps us to get to know each other bet­ter, to unders­tand each other’s needs and scars…
    On the other hand, conflict doesn’t mean vio­lence : arguing well, without dama­ging each other, can be lear­ned, and that’s what we sug­gest you look at in ses­sion 4 of the Unio pre­ma­ri­tal coun­se­ling course.
  3. Pas­sion
    The media’s vision of the couple is often asso­cia­ted with strong, constant desire : the couple goes home, makes love and comes five minutes later. In real life, once the « honey­moon » phase is over, things are dif­ferent : desire fluc­tuates (depen­ding on many things such as stress, fatigue, context…), and most couples soo­ner or later expe­rience « inequa­li­ties » in desire.
    So don’t panic ! All these wor­ries are per­fect­ly nor­mal, and lear­ning to dis­cuss them open­ly is the key ! Dis­co­ver our  tips for main­tai­ning a cou­ple’s desire for the long term.
  4. Love, the only ingre­dient nee­ded to make a rela­tion­ship work.
    Last but not least : once we’ve found the right per­son, once we’re both in love, the­re’s no more effort to be made – it’s all going to work out ! Well, we’re sor­ry to tell you, but no… Love has to be nur­tu­red : by devo­ting time to your rela­tion­ship, culti­va­ting com­mu­ni­ca­tion and hones­ty, kee­ping your com­mit­ments and sho­wing your­self to be trustworthy…
couple de femmes jeunes mariées

How can we get rid of beliefs that do us a disservice ?

Okay, that’s nice, but what do we do with these beliefs we’re all car­rying around ? In our view, there are seve­ral stages in this process :

  • The first is to reco­gnize them : what are the beliefs that are ingrai­ned in me ? Where do they come from ?
  • Then take stock : does this belief help me or hin­der me ? Is it in line with my values ? Does it belong to me or did I receive it without paying attention ?
  • If I choose to dis­tance myself from it, what would I rather believe instead ?
What limi­ting beliefs about rela­tion­ships and love have you become aware of ? If you’d like to go even fur­ther on this sub­ject, we sug­gest you tackle it in ses­sion 4 of the Unio pre-mar­riage prep.

Pho­to credits : 
Brune pho­to­gra­phie
which you can find on its website 
here
.

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We are Lysiane and Romain new­ly­weds and co-foun­ders of Unio pre­ma­ri­tal counseling. 
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